


.kalends

by artvinsky



Series: kalends, nones, ides [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Boats and Ships, Drunken Flirting, First Dates, Fishing, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Low Chaos Ending, Rating May Change, Romance, Whiskey - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 12:55:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10163477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artvinsky/pseuds/artvinsky
Summary: The good captain of the City Watch takes the Lord Protector out to the Wrenhaven to fish.(It's a date.In 3 parts.)





	

He knows that it was the Lord Protector that saved him at Holger Square.

Geoff hasn’t spent six months out at sea with the whirlwind of the training yard himself not to recognise his footsteps as Corvo, he knows it’s Corvo, emerges from the dark of the High Overseer Campbell’s secret room while the man’s body falls to an unconscious heap to the ground.

He remembers a breath held as he watches the way the masked assassin appraises him for what seemed to stretched on, a controlled rise and fall of shoulders and chest under robes that are much too familiar, even as deft, _marked_ hands put away a crossbow with green-tipped bolts loaded into it.

_“You seem familiar, even with that mask on.”_

The masked assailant brings a finger up to the mouth of his mask, a hush, as Geoff had spoken to him.

That moment is much more vivid than the aftermath of that memory.

His own men, two officers who had trusted in him, bore a great deal of loyalty that was inspired by him, press him with hushed tones as they leave the heavy air of Holger Square. Arguing amongst themselves to formulate some sort of tactic to prevent him meeting with Campbell before Geoff had returned, looking as though he had seen a ghost.

Their instincts were right that evening. The morning after, Campbell was branded a heretic and cast out and the Overseers were in chaos.

And Geoff? He was alive.

Corvo Attano. The Lord Protector, the masked assailant. And now, the new spymaster in the Empire of the young Empress Emily Kaldwin.

Geoff and his squad of good-hearted men and women, now assigned to the Tower by her Majesty herself. Emily had briefed them in the court room, his officers and himself taking a knee down in the presence of the young girl who seemed to be made smaller by the harsh angles of her throne, who has been through so much, but is now poised to rule them all. A young girl of eleven, now an empress.

Her mother would be proud, as they all are.

Corvo stands by her side and nods when she informs them that it was the Lord Protector’s recommendation to transfer them all to the Tower. Geoff sees Corvo’s dark eyes gauge his officers, before holding his own. Lips thinned to a line in what seems to be contemplation.

“Corvo trusts you all— to do the right thing. You’re all good people and I trust in you too.”

He sees Corvo much more frequently now. Reports of intelligence around the Tower’s surrounding districts of nobles and civilians returning to their homes as the plague starts to clear weeks into Emily’s reign. During the quietest of evenings, a fire burns to soft embers into the space that was Corvo’s office.

And Corvo sees him.

Past the half-empty bottle of whiskey shared between them, they assess the paperwork on the Spymaster nee Lord Protector’s desk, and Corvo appraises him yet again, an unreadable look settled on his sharp face, illuminated softly by the embers by the fireplace. He idly swirls his glass in his right, and holds a page of a report in his left, _marked_ , hand.

“What are you thinking about?” Geoff finds himself asking, taking another sip from his glass, pen ready to sign off his own papers. Civilian accounts of a domestic dispute families living by Kaldwin’s Bridge. “You get that look in your eyes when you’re thinking about something, Corvo.”

Corvo exhales, a hum, thoughtful. “Do you miss the sea?”

Geoff remembers the sea well. He remembers the voyage he’s shared with Corvo almost a year ago. And he remembers half-lost memories of times much earlier.

The frequent spars on the decks of grand whaling ships with sailors and Watch Officers crowded in a circle around them. Come to watch the honourable captain of the City Watch of Dunwall get his ass duly handed to him by the Lord Protector. The sea spray. The laughter of men about them as he is on the ground, the sharp blade to his throat lowered and Corvo’s left hand, unmarked, warm and rough, lifting him up for another round, a quiet laugh coming from his mouth. Best two out of three. He remembers the Serkonan sun beating down on their backs, his home, his childhood with his sister and grandfather by the coast of Karnaca.

Then the quiet evenings out at sea with the moon waning gibbous, the whales breaking the still swell of sea as they pass by Whitecliff, Corvo’s shoulder against his, both of them crowding beside each other for warmth as they watch the sight of these beasts extraordinary. He remembers the way Corvo’s hair whipped at the wind of that cold night, like soft feathers or of grass. A glimpse of summer in the winters.

 “Yes. It’s hard not to,” he replies. “There’s nothing quite like being out at sea.”

Corvo looks at him, stares into him, and Geoff remembers the mask and its penetrating gaze. Something is different however; something warmer, perhaps the fire, or the alcohol, or Corvo affixing him with a stare to attempt to understand. The man nods.

“Callista tells Emily that you know how to fish,” Corvo starts, finally emptying his first and only glass of the evening in one gulp. Geoff finds himself watching the way his throat moves as he swallows and he gives a small puff of breath into his own glass. “She’s asked me to ask you if you could teach her how to fish.”

“Is this what this is about?” Geoff sputters, making Corvo crack a smile, the ghost of which Geoff’s seen playing at his lips all evening.

“It might be. Before you take Emily fishing, I’d like to see it for myself, Geoff.”

A bubble of laughter rises from his throat before he can stop it, and he knows he’s had too much whiskey. But Corvo hides his smile no longer and Geoff swears he can feel the Serkonan sun yet still. He brings the rest of his drink to his mouth. “Fishing wasn’t on the list of things I’d do on a first date with you, Corvo.”

He winces at the burn flowing through his chest, but a cold climbs through the pit of his stomach at Corvo’s smile faltering. Geoff would have his head rolling on the dirt of Coldridge Prison for sodomy, all because of a mouth turned slick and slippery by good whiskey and the Lord Protector’s disarming smile. Outsider’s eyes. He’s a better man than this.

Corvo’s stare bears into him, smile gone but a spark of something else unhidden by his eyes. “A date?”

“If you’d like it to be-” Geoff starts, suddenly unable to breathe. Tense, a taut bowstring, ready to flee if he must. His knuckles are white as his tight grip around his empty glass of whiskey.

“Yes, I would.” Corvo nods, licks his lips, tentative, holding Geoff’s gaze still. He stands from his seat, corking the half-empty bottle of whiskey between them shut and reaching over for Geoff’s glass with his left hand.

Calloused fingers splay out over his, and his grip loosens, allowing the glass to be taken from his grasp. The warmth of the touch dispels the cold that starts to take hold in the pit of Geoff’s stomach and replaces it with a new sort of anticipation. Geoff looks up to see Corvo’s back turned from him, rinsing the glasses in a small sink and putting them away in the silence.

He rises out of his own seat and starts to give some semblance of organisation to their paperwork on Corvo’s desk. They’re not going to get through any more this evening. “Tomorrow then? I suppose, I— I’ll meet you by the water lock.”

Finished with wiping the glasses dry, Corvo turns, and Geoff exhales at the sight of a small smile. Finds himself smiling back. “Yes. Tomorrow evening.”

“It’s a date then.”

Corvo’s smile turns into a smirk, sharp, all too similar to Emily’s when she knows she’ll get what she wants. “Will you tell me what else you’d have planned with a date with me then?”

Geoff laughs, genuinely. Chest warm and core aflutter. He feels like he’s in the Serkonan Sun. “If you would like, Corvo. Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> //bangs pots and pans
> 
> hello it's been five years and geoff/corvo still remains to be my endgame otp


End file.
